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1876 
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THE LOUISIANA KLKCT10N. 




ADDRESS OF 




JAMES H. VAN ALEN 




Republican Reform Club 




OF TIIK CITY OF NEW i'ORK. 




In the Hall of the Few York Municipal Society, 




WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 3, 1877. 



THE LOUISIANA ELECTION 



ADDRESS OF 



JAMES H. VAN ALEN 



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TO THE 



Republican Reform Club 



OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 




In the Hall of the New York Municipal Society, 



WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 3 : 1871 



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At a special meeting of the Republican Reform 
Club of the City of New York, held in the Hall of 
the New York Municipal Society, Wednesday Even- 
ing, January 3, 1 877, General James H. Van Alen deliv- 
ered the folio wine 

ADDRESS. 

Gentlemen of the Republican Reform Club : 

I acknowledge with gratitude the invitation by which you have 
requested to take counsel with me concerning the result of the 
Presidential election, and especially concerning the electoral vote 
of Louisiana. If this Club were liable to the suspicion of being 
more partisan than patriotic — if its proceedings were subject to 
the reproach of seeking success for the Republican party through 
any dubious avenues — my unfamiliarity with the practice of pub- 
lic speaking would afford an easy excuse for avoiding this occasion. 
But I esteem it a high honor for my judgment to be asked as a 
guide or a confirmation of the opinions of gentlemen with whom 
it has been a privilege to be associated in this political campaign 
for upright purposes through upright means. Knowing that it 
is our common desire to ascertain the truth and abide by it, what- 
ever its result upon the fortunes of candidates or parties, I beg 
vour indulgence of the awkwardness of a person unused to other 
arts of speech than those of social conversation, while I tell you 
briefly the substance of my observations and inquiries in New 
Orleans. 

The invitation with which the President honored me, to go to 
Louisiana and report to him the truth about the election there, 
I presume was owing wholly to personal acquaintance and con- 
fidence. He knew that I am not a politician, and he did me the 
credit to believe (perhaps for that very reason) that if 1 saw fraud 
or outrage on either side I would be very quick tosay so. Possibly 
also my opinion, well known to him, of the inefficiency and cor- 
ruption that have stained the Civil Service in the South, and of 
the urgent need of a reform there, may have influenced his choice. 
He may have wished to learn how the facts in Louisiana impre 



men of every shade of Republicanism. Without further preface, 
let me say that I went to New Orleans ; that, during a stay of nearly 
three weeks there, I enjoyed opportunities to learn the facts neces- 
sary to pass a fair judgment upon the proceedings of the Returning 
Board of the State ; that I improved those opportunities to the 
utmost of my ability, aided by an extensive previous acquaintance 
with residents belonging to each party ; and that I do not doubt 
that it is right and lawful to count the electoral vote of Louisiana 
for Hayes and Wheeler. In my opinion the Returning Board of 
Louisiana could not have permitted the vote of their State to 
stand for the Democratic electors, as apparently it did on the 
face of the returns, without violating the statute by virtue of 
which they held office, and sanctioning a mass of intimidation 
and fraud disgraceful to republican institutions. 

Of the intellectual acuteness of my colleagues, whose names 
are attached to the report which has been presented through 
Senator Sherman to the President, I need not speak, for it is 
well known to the country ; but I can testify to their fairness 
in investigation. I do not believe that impartial men could 
come to any other conclusion upon the proofs ; and I deep- 
ly regret that the delegation of gentlemen belonging to the Dem- 
ocratic party, who were present by request of the Chairman 
of the Democratic National Committee, neither saw fit to join 
with us in a common examination of those proofs with a view 
to reach a common conclusion, nor to submit their testimony 
to the President and the country together with ours, so that 
the people might compare any conflicting evidence. The high 
character of the Democratic delegates, and the manly ex- 
pressions of indignation, to which some of them gave vent, con- 
cerning certain instances of brutal violence which were brought 
to their attention, confirm me in the belief that a common 
conclusion would have been possible if deplorable influences had 
not prevailed upon them to hold themselves apart from us. 
Until I was compelled to believe otherwise by their own confession 
— and it is worthy of your attention that they long withheld 
their report from the public — I was not altogether without hope 
that even on their own partial and imperfect investigation they 
might determine that the way of justice is to frankly approve the 
adjudication of the vote of Louisiana to the Republican Presi- 
dential candidates. 



Thus briefly stating the result to which I was compelled by 
my observations in Louisiana, let me review to you, with equal 
brevity, the processes by which I was forced to it. 

It is needless to discuss in this connection the question of 
universal suffrage. Speaking for myself alone, I deplore the 
extension of suffrage to uneducated men, white or black, 
North or South. I regard it as the most fruitful source of mis- 
government both in the Northern cities and in the Southern 
states. I believe that one of President Grant's best claims to 
honor consists in his persistent recommendations to limit it by 
educational qualifications. But it exists in Louisiana, and exists 
lawfully. The law of Louisiana gives suffrage to men of all 
classes, all colors, and all degrees of intelligence. The questions 
we had to consider did not relate to the policy of this law, but 
solely to the obstructions which men of one class and color threw 
in the way of the free exercise of suffrage by men of another 
class and color. 

The registration lists of the State show that the voting popula- 
tion two years ago was divided between the whites and the blacks in 
the proportion of 76,823 to 90,781, and in the year 1876 of 92,996 
to 115,310. But on the face of the returns of the November elec- 
tion the Democratic electoral ticket appeared to have received 
Sz^zG votes, and the Republican electoral ticket only 77,023 
votes. In view of the notorious fact that heretofore, in Louisiana, 
whenever and wherever there has been a fair opportunity for a 
free expression of their choice, the blacks always have voted 
the Republican national ticket with substantia] unanimity, 
these returns were suspicious on their face. Fortunately for 
justice they were not final. Previous experience had pro- 
vided a safeguard. They were made to a Board which was 
created by statute in 1870 with extraordinary powers that 
were increased by another statute two years later. I assume 
that these statutes confer on this Board supreme authority 
to canvass the votes cast throughout the entire State, and not 
onl>yauthorize, but direct it, if convinced that riot, tumult, acts 
of violence, intimidation, armed disturbance, bribery or corrupt 
influences have prevented voters from registering, or have mate- 
rially interfered with the purity or freedom of election at any poll 
or voting-place, or have materially changed the result of the 
election, to exclude the votes cast at such polls or voting-places 



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from the final count. As the Constitution of the United States 
prescribes that the Presidential electors shall be appointed in each 
State "in such manner as the Legislature thereof shall direct," 
and as the Legislature of Louisiana has seen fit in its discretion 
to subject the popular vote to such a revision in order to cleanse 
it from the effects of violence and fraud, no other State, nor any 
person, has a right to complain of the Louisiana Board as an il- 
legal tribunal, or to object to its' proceedings as unauthorized, 
provided they are in conformity with the statutes of Louisiana. 
To their conclusive character as judicial proceedings, in which 
the honest discretion of the members of the Board is not subject 
to supervision or reversal, the Supreme Court of the State has 
borne witness as follows : 

" No statute conferring upon the courts the power to try any 
cases of contested elections or the title to office authorizes them 
to revise the action of the Returning Board. If we are to assume 
that prerogative, we should have to go still further and revise the 
returns of the supervisors of elections, examine the right of voters 
to vote, and, in short, the court would become in regard to such 
cases mere officers for counting, compiling and reporting election 
returns. The Legislature has seen proper to lodge the power to 
decide who has or who has not been elected in the Returning 
Board. It might have conferred that power on the courts, but it 
did not. Whether the law be good or bad, it is our duty to obey 
its provisions and not to legislate." 

I do not propose to argue the statutory question which was raised 
for the first time by the Democratic Committee, in their report, 
whether the canvassing of the votes for Presidential electors is not 
excepted from the jurisdiction of the Returning Board. I am not 
a lawyer, and am content to rest my own opinion of this question 
on the fact that the Board did in fact canvass the Presidential 
vote in 1872 without any such objection, and on the assurance of 
my colleagues, including lawyers and statesmen of pre-eminent 
ability, that there is no good ground for doubt on the subject. 
Many of your own number, trained in the schools and the practice 
of jurisprudence, are more competent to deal with that aspect of 
the question than a layman like myself. Assuming the complete 
jurisdiction of the Board, I propose to discuss to you only the 
matters of fact which it became my duty to investigate, in order to 
determine whether, for the sake of truth and justice, the Board is 
right in excluding a portion of the returns as tainted, and thereby 



adjudging in the final count that a majority of the honest votes 
was cast for the Republican electoral candidates. 

A careful examination of the testimony before the Board, the 
record of which is so immense that it comprises more than two 
thousand large manuscript pages, satisfied me beyond the shadow 
of a doubt that this was the sad condition of the facts. 

The negroes are a timid race, easily liable to terror, and quick 
to obey the impulses of fear. Besides their native facility 
to yield to intimidation, a hundred years of servitude have 
accustomed them to submit to the exercise of force by white men. 
It was this amiable and weak quality of their character, of which 
the Democrats availed themselves to reverse by violence the Re- 
publican majority in the State. 

Some seventeen parishes were selected for their field of 
operations ; but especially five, in which the blacks so largely out- 
numbered the whites that if they could be dragooned into voting 
the Democratic ticket, or restrained from voting at all, the Demo- 
cratic gain in them alone would secure the State to Tilden on the 
face of the returns. I refer to the parishes of East Feliciana, 
West Feliciana, Morehouse, Ouachita and East Baton Rouge. 
The registered black voters in these five number 12,904, and the 
white voters only 5,704, and party lines and color lines are almost 
synonymous in them. There are few of the blacks who are not 
Republicans and few of the whites who are not Democrats. The 
white Republican population was too feeble and too scattered 
to resist the policy which was pursued. Every one of these 
parishes was patrolled at night by bands of armed Democrats, 
and violent means were taken to impress the negroes with fear 
of danger to property, limb, and even life, if they should visit the 
polls without voting the Democratic ticket. Some of them were 
killed. Many of them were beaten and maimed. The policy was 
so successful that whereas these parishes in 1874 gave a Republi- 
can majority of 3,979, in 1876 they returned a Democratic 
majority of 4,412. This Democratic gain of 8,391, in these five 
parishes alone, is larger than the majority returned from the whole 
State for the Tilden ticket. In East Feliciana, where in 1874 
there was a Republican vote of 1,688, only one solitary Republi- 
can, white or black, dared to present himself at the polls in 
November 1876, although the registration gave 2,127 black 
voters in the parish. To a very considerable extent I found 



the same condition of force and fraud, with similar results, in the 
parishes of Claiborne, Richland, Grant, Union, and several more. 
There was small cause to complain of the proceedings on election 
day, except in isolated localities. The work of terror was done be- 
fore hand, and it was done effectually. The quiet of the election 
was the quiet of fear and not of freedom. The blacks were kept at 
home or were intimidated into polling a ticket which was not 
their free choice. On the face of the returns these facts could 
not appear. They were fair enough on their face, and showed 
only an amazing reversal of previous political opinion in certain 
parishes, without showing its cause. But a comparison of the 
returns of these parishes with those from the rest proved that the 
change was not a general one throughout the State. This of 
course was suspicious, and naturally would induce a fair man to 
search behind their face; and, upon so searching, the testimony 
was overwhelming, and to me convincing, that it occurred to any 
considerable degree only in the parishes, and especially in the 
five I have named, where fear and fraud had controlled the black 
population. 

I appeal to you as fair citizens, whether any judicial tribunal, 
having power over such returns, could suffer results to stand 
which were obtained by such means. I ask Governor Tilden and 
his fair supporters, whether they could enjoy with a clear con- 
science the fruits of such a harvest. If the Returning Board 
had not exercised its lawful authority to exclude the returns of 
these abused parishes, they would have committed a grievous 
offence against the liberties of the whole people of the United 
States. It matters not what are the antecedents of the members 
of the Board. They are its members — the lawful depositaries of 
its power. The question is whether in the present instance they 
have exercised it legally, wisely, justly, righteously, and that is 
the only question. If they have previously erred, consciously 
or unconsciously, that goes only to the degree of inspection 
which the people should exercise into the facts upon which they 
have founded their present decision, and surely no one can com- 
plain that they are not in the focus of the full blaze of public 
scrutiny. 

Nor am I able to agree with the Democratic Committee in their 
assertion that the evils with which the Republican administra- 
tion of Louisiana has afflicted the State induced any great 



number of black voters to support Governor Tilden for Presi- 
dent in preference to Governor Hayes. I do not palliate or ex- 
cuse that administration in the slightest degree. I know that it 
has been corrupt, unscrupulous and wasteful. It has paralyzed 
the industry and commerce of the city of New Orleans. It has 
rendered almost all property unproductive, has averted immigra- 
tion, and has prevented the recovery of the Mississippi Valley 
from the disastrous effects of the civil war. I do not deny that there 
is a great and growing sensitiveness of intelligent men, white and 
black, to those evils, and I am glad of it. But I do deny that 
there is evidence to justify a belief that any great number of 
men, heretofore Republicans in Louisiana, freely voted for Gov- 
ernor Tilden rather than for Governor Hayes in the hope of a 
remedy. The wise and prudent and patriotic words of our 
presidential candidate were familiar throughout Louisiana, and 
no wiser, more prudent and more patriotic words have been 
spoken or written about the Southern troubles which have re- 
sulted from the mistakes of reconstruction and from the control 
of federal appointments by ambitious and unscrupulous Republi- 
can leaders to whom President Grant unfortunately surrendered 
the dictation of them. Let me repeat those encouraging and 
inspiring words. We cannot repeat them too frequently : 

The condition of the Southern States attracts the attention and 
commands the sympathy of the people of the whole Union. In 
their progressive recovery from the effects of the war, their first 
necessity is an intelligent and honest administration of government 
which will protect all classes of citizens in their official and private 
rights. What the South most needs is " peace," and peace depends 
upon the supremacy of the law. There can be no enduring peace 
if the constitutional rights of any portion of the people are habitu- 
ally disregarded. A division of political parties resting merely 
upon sectional lines is always unfortunate and may be disastrous. 
The welfare of the South, alike with that of every other part of 
this country, depends upon the attractions it can afford to labor 
and immigration and to capital. But laborers will not go and 
capital will not be ventured where the Constitution and the laws 
are set at defiance, and distraction, apprehension and alarm take 
the place of peace-loving and law-abiding social life. All parts of 
the Constitution are sacred and must be sac redly observed — the 
parts that are new no less than the parts that are old. The 
moral and national prosperity of the Southern States can be most 
effectually advanced by a hearty and generous recognition of the 
rights of all, by all — a recognition without reserve or exception. 



With such a recognition fully accorded it will be practicable to 
promote, by the influence of all legitimate agencies of the general 
government, the efforts of the people of those States to obtain for 
themselves the blessings of honest and capable local government. 
If elected I shall consider it not only my duty, but it will be my 
ardent desire to labor for the attainment of this end. Let me as- 
sure my countrymen of the Southern States that if I shall be 
charged with the duty of organizing an administration, it will be 
one which will regard and cherish their truest interests — the inter- 
ests of the white and the colored people both, and equally ; and 
which will put forth its best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which 
will wipe out forever the distinction between North and South in 
our common country. 

With a civil service organized upon a system which will secure 
purity, experience, efficiency and economy, a strict regard for the 
public welfare solely, in appointments, and the speedy, thorough 
and unsparing prosecution and punishment of all public officers 
who betray official trusts ; with a sound currency ; with education 
unsectarian and free to all ; with simplicity and frugality in public 
and private affairs, and with a fraternal spirit of harmony perva- 
ding the people of all sections and classes, we may reasonably 
hope that the second century of our existence as a nation will, by 
the blessing of God, be pre-eminent as an era of good feeling, and 
a period of progress, prosperity and happiness. 

Those Southern Republicans who are dissatisfied with what is 
called "carpet-bag " government had neither the need nor the 
disposition to look elsewhere than to the writer of those words 
for a remedy. In his election to the Presidency they had a firm 
assurance of it. They foresaw under his administration a 
reformed republican party, reinforced in every Southern State by 
white men of property, intelligence and character, and compri- 
sing the best part of the remains of the old Whig party that 
linger there. They perceived the approach of a day in the near 
future when the President would retake into his own hands the 
control of the federal offices in the South and exclude from his 
councils the men who have abused them. Jt was precisely this 
which impelled the rash and cruel acts of violence that were 
committed in the Democratic interest in the intimidated Louis- 
iana parishes. It was because the most rash and unscrupulous 
Democrats knew that the Republican vote of Louisiana would not 
lessen itself by the voluntary defection of members of the 
Republican party, that they determined to lessen it by violence, 
and carried out their lawless determination. The very same 



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spirit of intense partisanship which has led some Democrats on 
the Pacific coast to commit a fraud upon the electoral vote of 
Oregon, induced others in the Gulf States to resort to force to 
repress and defeat a free expression of the popular will. Their 
motive was political ambition, not political reform. They were 
unwilling to accept reform from the hands of the Republicans. 
They were determined that it should come only through Demo-% 
cratic channels, and in order to open those channels they used 
intimidation. 

I do not believe that the Democratic party will justify the 
deeds of its lawless and violent members in Louisiana when the 
evidence of them is spread before the country. I see signs of 
the growth of sobriety among its leaders. It is noticeable in the 
very report of the Democratic Committee who were present with 
us in Xew Orleans, which does not attack the decision of the 
Returning Board upon the evidence, but upon legal technicali- 
ties, impeachment of motives, and assaults against character. It 
is noticeable in the upright and honorable course of the great 
majority of the Democratic Senators, under the lead of Mr. Bayard 
of Delaware — whom I desire to mention with high respect — in 
regard to the abrogation of the twenty-second joint rule of Con- 
gress. It is manifest in a belief fast spreading among Democrats 
everywhere, and especially among the cooler Democratic leaders 
of the South, that Governor Hayes, righteously elected and inau- 
gurated President of the United States, will have the disposition 
and the power to remove all causes of dissatisfaction with the 
federal administration in the Southern States, and will steadily 
pursue a policy which will promote the rapid return of prosperity 
to that section and to the whole country. What is now a doubt 
on the part of many of Mr. Tilden's recent supporters, whether 
as President he possibly could suppress that element in his party 
which committed these acts of violence in Louisiana and of deceit 
in Oregon, will ripen into conviction before the 4th of March and 
reconcile them to their political defeat as a public blessing. Still 
quicker, perhaps, might be that reconciliation if the whole Lou- 
isiana case could meanwhile be submitted by Congress to the 
revision of the Supreme Court of the United States, whose serene 
and impartial judgment I feel a perfect confidence would con- 
firm in the most solemn manner and to the fullest extent the 
award by which fraud and force have been rebuked. I deeply 



regret the defeat of the proposition of Senator Edmunds for such 
a submission, and I hope that the intervention of that court in 
some form, as an arbiter whose decision will command the confi- 
dence of all men, will result from the conferences of the commit- 
tees of Congress which now are considering plans for counting the 
electoral votes. The Republican case in Louisiana needs on the 
facts no technicality, no apology, no concealment, nothing but a 
full and fair examination, for complete and universal acquiesence 
in its results. 

In conclusion, I invite your patriotic efforts to combine the 
honest men of both parties in a common endeavor to reach a 
peaceful and harmonious settlement of the Presidential controver- 
sy by such a full and fair examination of the facts. Let us dis- 
courage a spirit of blind partisanship. Let us welcome associa- 
tion with our political opponents in every fair investigation. Let 
us appeal to their love of country and their sense of justice not 
to uphold the wrongs which the black voters of Louisiana have 
suffered, without first searching the terrible record of the testi- 
mony which proves that the returns, so fair upon their face, were 
tainted with fraud and violence, and were a false expression of 
the popular will. President Grant struck the keynote of patriot- 
ism when he declared that " either party can afford to be disap- 
pointed in the result, but the country cannot afford to have the 
result tainted by the suspicion of illegal or false returns." 

At the close of General Van Alen's address the 
following resolutions were adopted by the Club : 

Resolved, That the thanks of the Club are hereby expressed to 
General Van Men for his able, patriotic, temperate and instructive 
address concerning the electoral vote of the State of Louisiana. 

Resolved, That the sure and patriotic way to the reform of our 
government, the restoration of public confidence and the revival 
of business, consists in a universal and cheerful acquiescence in 
the official declaration of the election of the candidates for Pres- 
ident and Vice President of the United States which has been 
determined by the vote of the electoral colleges. 

Resolved, That the attempt of partisans to obstruct the decla- 
ration of that vote is the efficient cause of the stagnation of trade 
and suspension of industry. 



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